[ENTJam]

How are you, my lovely ENFJs?

So I have this issue... I'll try to keep it succint:

-->I have no issues with people with different opinions from mine;
-->I, however, seem to demonstrate I "disapprove" them, when I really DON'T.

This makes it hard with "blending-in" with different groups of people - people I'd like to make friends with.

Any ideas?


-->Apparently, my "opinions" come off through my facial expressions... I really don't see how... what should I do?

 

[dulcinea]

I'm not an ENFJ, but I do this "blending in" thing sometimes. I think it involves using your feeling side more. I find what I do is I might think about a person and how they make me feel whether the person is present or absent, and then I take on their vocabulary and such, I kind of do it subconsciously. It doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions. I find when I sense people are more comfortable around me, I tend to be more forthright in expressing my own opinions if anything, as long as I feel no one is going to be offended by them:

If you want a more intellectual recipe and don't feel comfortable just feeling it out, idk if you're already familiar with this website, but it has lots of goodies to help people learn to blend in and make other people feel more comfortable. It's Changing minds and persuasion -- How we change what others think, believe, feel and do:
Just a few highlights I gleaned from the website:
mirroring, or copying the other person's body language really puts people at ease because at a subconscious level they think, "Okay, this guy's just like us."
I understand tilting the head a little forward gives a signal that you're really listening to someone, like little body language cues like that....
I find before I really learned how to be more social, I practiced things like that, and would try to make a conscious effort, especially to mirror peoples' body language, until it just became natural. I find it makes a difference in how people see me. I find it puts people at ease and makes them more apt to see me as nonthreatening.

 

[BlueSpiral]

I'd like to help you, but I need examples. Give me a scenario?

 

[Elenita]

I can relate to the OP's issue, as I'm an INTJ. In my opinion, NT's run into this a lot.

Speaking purely for myself (though I feel like a lot of NTs have something similar), I have a conversational mode where I'm in "neutral." This can take two forms:

(a) Sometimes, I'm concentrating so hard on processing what's being said (the ideas) that I don't participate in the conversation myself. It's not just that I don't; in fact, I can't: when the input is so overwhelming, output is impossible. But because the others can't see the raging rush inside my head, they interpret my silence as disengagement, and thus disapproval. But the truth is, I'm so hyper-engaged that I don't know if I approve or disapprove yet: that comes after all the processing. But other people think I disapprove.

(b) Similarly, some people interpret lack of affirmation as rejection (whereas, I only interpret outright explicit rejection as actual rejection). So simply accepting other people's opinions without engaging in debate (in my view) was interpreted as rejection or disapproval (in their view). But affirming others' views can feel odd (why am I telling you how you feel? Can't you figure that out yourself?), or fake, or inefficient--and the last two are counter to my personal values.

[As a semi-aside: I think NTs are in a double-bind here, because many people don't like our primary mode of engaging people, which is through debate of ideas, because they can feel attacked. So we don't go down that road, but they also feel uncomfortable if we don't engage them. What they really want (though they'd never say it this way) is for NTs to engage them in un-NT ways, but that feels like a rejection of the self to the NT, and thus can feel like engaging others at the expense of the self. And obviously, that's enormously painful.]

goguapsy, if you can relate to any of the above at all, here are two things that I've found useful:

(1) Give people affirmation, even if it's for little things. That helps with the lack of affirmation equals rejection problem.

(2) If you want to be friends with someone, tell them what you admire (which is presumably what you want to base your friendship on). Maybe add (if it's relevant) that you have different opinions about certain things, but you don't think that's a minus.

Hope this helps!

 

[SilentScream]

This makes it hard with "blending-in" with different groups of people - people I'd like to make friends with.

Any ideas?

Considering you're a 1 and an ENTJ, here's what it says to me about your interaction style. [correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be completely wrong].

You're probably one of those people with a heart of gold, but a demeanour that comes across as all business-like and seem inflexible in your judgements and values.

Probably very consistent and argument oriented - and coupled with the objectivity and knowledge store [the building blocks] supported by introverted intuition means that sometimes when you speak, you probably come across as arrogantly sure of yourself.

I'm betting that half the time people are intently listening to what you're saying, but probably not being able to see that beneath the argument lies the flexibility of opinion that just doesn't come across - and may even feel intimidated. Ever feel like you've gotten so caught up in the heat of the argument / discussion and lost sight of people's reactions to those arguments - and then a few hours / even days later you get a "wake up call" from inside telling you "You know - maybe I said some things in some ways that I shouldn't have said" .. I think that's your inferior Fi expressing itself.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong necessarily. Do you find yourself arguing in absolutes and ignoring fillers like "Well, maybe here's another possible perspective" ... "I could be wrong but ..." or "I don't have complete information, but based on what I've read/learnt this is what I think" ... Sometimes showing a little lack of surety in a subtle manner can be more endearing than absolute surety which could be seen as arrogance.

Again --- I'm probably just grasping at straws here based on the little information you've provided. Hope it helps.

Edit: Note how I started off my conversation with you and the different fillers I put in to ensure that you understand my argument, but feel free to ignore / reject it at the same time.